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Texans will have an opportunity to revisit a question that should haunt anyone who believes in the integrity of our criminal justice system: Did our state execute an innocent man?
The new film “Trial by Fire” tells the true story of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was sentenced to death for setting a fire to his home in Corsicana that killed his three young daughters in 1991. The film is based on an investigative story by David Grann that appeared in the New Yorker in 2009, five years after Willingham was executed over his vociferous protestations of innocence.
In my experience of serving 8 years on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and 4 years as a state district judge in Travis County, the Willingham case stands out to me for many of the same reasons it stood out to filmmaker Edward Zwick, who calls it a veritable catalogue of everything that’s wrong with the criminal justice system and, especially, the death penalty. False testimony, junk science, a jailhouse informant, and ineffe…

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Morocco: Suspected jihadists back in dock over murder of two Scandinavian women

Salé (Morocco) (AFP) -- A street vendor, a plumber and a carpenter are among two dozen jihadist suspects who return to a Moroccan court Thursday, charged in connection with the brutal murder of two Scandinavian hikers.

Danish student Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, and 28-year-old Norwegian Maren Ueland had their throats slit before they were beheaded in December at an isolated site in the High Atlas mountains.

The main suspects are all from the Marrakech region near the site of the killings, which shocked the North African country.

Abdessamad Ejjoud, a 25-year-old street vendor, is the alleged leader of the group. He had been jailed for trying to join the Islamic State group in Syria but was released in 2015.

Younes Ouaziyad, 27, and Rachid Afatti, 33, have been named as the other two key suspects. The others have been accused of links to the killers and of forming part of a "terrorist cell".

The three main defendants accused of direct involvement, who allegedly pledged allegiance to IS, could face the death penalty.

A total of 24 defendants were to appear in the criminal court in Sale, near Rabat, to face charges including promoting terrorism, forming a terrorist cell and premeditated murder.

An opening hearing was held on May 2 but immediately postponed for two weeks after defence lawyers requested more time to prepare their case.

A Spanish-Swiss convert to Islam is among the suspects on trial, accused of teaching the main accused how to use encrypted communications and how to fire a gun.

Nature lovers Jespersen and Ueland shared an apartment and went to Norway's Bo University where they were studying to be guides.

They had travelled together to Morocco for their Christmas holidays.

Their lives were cut short in the foothills of Toubkal, the highest summit in North Africa, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the city of Marrakesh, a tourist magnet.

'Enemies of Allah'

According to the charge sheet, the assailants travelled to the High Atlas mountains on December 12 on a mission to kill tourists.

Several potential targets were passed over because the foreigners were accompanied by guides or local residents.

It was four days before they selected their targets, who were camped at an isolated site. Two of them carried out the killings while the third filmed them on a telephone, according to the prosecution.

After the bodies were discovered, the Moroccan authorities were initially cautious, referring to a "criminal act" and wounds to the victims' necks.

But that all changed when the video surfaced showing a victim being beheaded, while one of the killers refers to "enemies of Allah" says the attacks were in revenge for the killings of jihadists in Syria.

A separate video in the initial aftermath of the murder showed the alleged killers pledging allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Investigators said the "cell" was inspired by IS ideology, but Morocco's anti-terror chief insisted the accused had no contact with the jihadist group in conflict zones.

IS has never claimed responsibility for the double-murder.

Police quickly arrested a first suspect in the suburbs of Marrakesh, and three others were arrested a few days later when they tried to leave the city by bus.

The suspects had recently embraced Salafism, an ultra-conservative branch of Sunni Islam, according to friends, neighbours and some family members.

A lawyer for one of the victim's families told AFP he would seek the death penalty for the murders.

A de facto suspension on executions has been in place in Morocco since 1993.

A second Swiss citizen arrested after the double-murder was tried separately and jailed in mid-April for 10 years on charges including "forming a terrorist group".

The main trial is expected to run for months before it reaches a verdict.

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

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Death penalty repeal has passed the Legislature three times, in 2000, 2018 and 2019, only to fall to the respective veto pens of Gov. Jeanne Shaheen and Gov. Sununu, so if repealing the death penalty is important to you, now is the time to reach out to your state representatives and senators.
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OSAKA -- The death sentence has been finalized for a 49-year-old man convicted of the 2015 murder of two junior high school students in western Japan after he withdrew his appeal, a court said Tuesday.
Koji Yamada retracted the appeal on May 18, according to the Osaka High Court.
During the first hearing of his trial at the Osaka District Court in November 2018, Yamada denied intending to kill Natsumi Hirata, 13, and pleaded not guilty over the death of 12-year-old Ryoto Hoshino, insisting he had died of an illness.
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Texans will have an opportunity to revisit a question that should haunt anyone who believes in the integrity of our criminal justice system: Did our state execute an innocent man?
The new film “Trial by Fire” tells the true story of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was sentenced to death for setting a fire to his home in Corsicana that killed his three young daughters in 1991. The film is based on an investigative story by David Grann that appeared in the New Yorker in 2009, five years after Willingham was executed over his vociferous protestations of innocence.
In my experience of serving 8 years on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and 4 years as a state district judge in Travis County, the Willingham case stands out to me for many of the same reasons it stood out to filmmaker Edward Zwick, who calls it a veritable catalogue of everything that’s wrong with the criminal justice system and, especially, the death penalty. False testimony, junk science, a jailhouse informant, and ineffe…

It is “not tenable” for Singapore to go easy on Malaysian drug offenders who are caught on the Singapore side of the causeway, the island's Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam, said today.
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He pointed out that a majority of Singaporeans supported a tough anti-drug stance, including the use of the death penalty against drug traffickers.
Last week, the …

DPN opposes the death penalty in all cases, unconditionally, regardless of the method chosen to kill the condemned prisoner. The death penalty is inherently cruel and degrading, an archaic punishment that is incompatible with human dignity. To end the death penalty is to abandon a destructive diversionary and divisive public policy that is not consistent with widely held values. The death penalty not only runs the risk of irrevocable error, it is also costly to the public purse as well as in social and psychological terms.The death penalty has not been proved to have a special deterrent effect. It tends to be applied in a discriminatory way on grounds of race and class. It denies the possibility of reconciliation and rehabilitation. It prolongs the suffering of the murder victim's family and extends that suffering to the loved ones of the condemned prisoner. It diverts resources that could be better used to work against violent crime and assist those affected by it. Death Penalty News is a privately owned, non-profit organization. It is based in Paris, France.Your donations to Death Penalty News DO make a difference.